Monday, August 8, 2016

This is a food blog and I love sharing my recipes with the world. This time I need to say a few words about how we all feel at these strange and frustrating times. Most of us are in a state of unconsciousness, like you have taken stress pills or like the aftermath of an operation where you feel dizzy and can not really understand what is going around you, we want to wake up and go on with our lives but that does not happen. Since june last year nothing has been normal in this country. Many young men have been killed at fights with ISIS or PKK at our south eastern border, it almost became normal to listen to the news to hear more soldiers dying everyday, than the terrorist attacks in our major cities many more young people dying, and finally the unsuccessful coup that has terrorised our minds. So many conspiracy theories flying around we are trying to fish the reasonable ones to keep our sanity. What more, in Bodrum where we are you can not recognize any unease people are still on the beaches as if nothing is happening in the country, makes you sometimes think this all is imagination. Above all no more cruise lines visiting our harbours, no tourists taking any tours or cooking courses and having no income to hope for surviving and a better future for our children brings us to the borders of depression.

Could not put myself together to write another recipe since March but here I am and think cooking and cooking colorful make us all feel much better so here it goes, a classic Turkish Recipe called Imam Bayildi with a twist ;

Directions ;
Take the skin of the eggplants in stripes, and make a slit as shown on the picture below, make sure you do not cut all the way you will need to make small boats to fill in the stuffing. Place all the eggplants in the bowl with lemon and salt let is stay until you prepare the stuffing.

For the stuffing put 2 spoon fulls of olive oil in the pan stir fry all the vegetables, add persimmon and walnuts and add vinigar remove from heat.
Dry the eggplants with a kitchen towel and fry them with the rest of the olive oil. Once they are fried open up their bellies as on the above picture. Place the eggplants in a pyrex pan than fill in the stuffing we made earlier.

Add 1/2 cup of water and bake for 25 minutes at 180 C
Serve together with other Turkish Mezze.
Bon Apetit !

Saturday, March 12, 2016

When these baby zucchinis arrive at the markets, this is a must do. If you ever grow zucchinis in your garden you know, how good the crop can be you, you would not know what to do with them.
Well this is one good way to cook them easy and super delicious.

Mix olive oil and the herbs some salt and black pepper, spare a small amount and use the rest to cover the cheese, let the cheese stay in this mixture for one hour .
Cut the zucchinis as shown in the pictures, make sure you do not cut the zucchini to the end you need to leave a small space at the bottom to make sure they to do not fall apart. Than rub the zucchinis with the olive oil mixture but add a little bit more salt before you rub them. Let these wait an hour too. After one hour line your oven tray with baking paper, stuff the cheese in the zucchinis, cook at 180 C (350 F) for about 15 minutes. We like them a little cruchie if you like to have a soft texture than you will need to cook for 30 minutes.
Bon Apetite ! Afiyet olsun !

Monday, January 25, 2016

In Turkey, we love cooking with Quince. Most popular in Turkish Cuisine is a delicous dessert served with clotted cream or it can be cooked in a clay pot with lamb a mind blowing main course. Apart from these most popular dishes thinly sliced quince is a side snack to drink raki ( in Greece it is Ouzo, in Lebanon it is Araq, in France it becomes Pernot ) With my back ground, from the western part of Turkey where we eat everything with olive oil, I created this recipe which became one of the most populars in our restaurant, Quince in olive oil with Raki !

Fry the onions with sugar in olive oil, when they start to turn their color, add the sieved quince to the mixture and stir. When it starts brizzling again than add 2 spoons from the water you have taken the quinces out. Few minutes later add the raki cook for another 5 minutes and add the fennel close the lid and cook for another 5 minutes. Let it cool and serve.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

I have been a lazy cook book author to be, this winter. My recipes had to wait, many family affairs going on when your parents get older but the best thing was our first grand doughter arrived in November could not help knitting for a baby girl after 3 boys.

Recipe for Milky Puff Böreks

Ingredients ;

4 Yufka's ( Filo's about 1 kg ) devided into 6 big triangles.

1 cup milk

1 spoon baking powder

1/2 cup feta cheese mashed

1/2 cup ricotta

1 bunch of parsley chopped

1/2 bunch of dill chopped

1 egg for the stuffing

1 egg for the batter

1/4 cup sunflower oil

Mix the two cheeses together, add parsley and dill and whip the egg into the cheese mixture and the baking powder.

Prepare the batter add the egg to the milk whip, and add oil salt and pepper.

On each triangle pieces of filo put the cheese mixture at the bottom of the triangle like you are rolling cigars, than from one end roll them into a rose. Put these roses in a greased pyrex pan and add the batter, put all of them into the fridege for minimum 1 hour.

Line a oven tray with baking paper and take the roses out of the milk batter and line them into the tray sprinkle with black sesamee or poppy seeds or sesame and bake in the oven until they are golden brown for about 20 minutes.

About Me

I am the founder and owner of Cooking Classes Bodrum, I was owner of a tour operator and a hotel management company when I made a change in my life and moved to Bodrum: a town and peninsula of rural villages on the South-western Turkish coast just where the Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean.
Here I have followed my passion for cooking and love of digging into the history of recipes , that I collected so many stories of recipes and methods.
After a very busy executive life, it was my dream to have my own restaurant where I could go into the kitchen myself, put my hands on food and follow my mother’s and grandmother’s recipes as well as my own recipes and share it with others.
It is now a beautiful reality.
With the advantages of my former life of travelling within Turkey and abroad, with a deep understanding of what wonderful experiences can engage world travellers in local cultures, and I feel the ideal way is by sharing food at the table, with the many methods of preparation and discovering the joys of fresh ingredients.